Columnists

On June 3, at the end of an epic contest, Democrats nominated Barack Obama as their presidential candidate rather than Hillary Clinton. Sixteen months ago, few would have predicted that a relatively unknown African-American senator would defeat the famous wife of the 42nd U.S. president. While many factors contributed to the outcome, the grueling campaign highlighted a critical difference between the candidates: Obama demonstrated better judgment than did Clinton. -more-

Does Baraka Obama—if and when he is president of the United States—have the skills to go head-to-head with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad and come to some agreement of mutual benefit to both countries as well as to the Middle East and to the rest of the world? -more-

Chilean mayten, Maytenus boari, has for quite a while been touted as a substitute for “California” peppertree, Schinus molle, since the latter has been ravaged by scale insects and disease. The peppertree was supposedly introduced by Spanish missionaries, who brought it up from South America. It’s been in the California landscape a long time, so we have some senior specimens. It’s a pity to lose them wholesale, and I don’t see mayten as filling that same aesthetic niche as peppertree’s gnarled black trunk dressed in such unlikely, graceful foliage. -more-

Clothes dryers seem innocuous enough but actually, it turns out that they’re killers. More accurately, I should say, they’re arsonists, because they cause about 15,000 fires a year. -more-